The invention relates to a pad-type printing machine with a mount for a cliche, with an ink supply device exhibiting a hollow body, whereby during the operation of the machine the end face of the hollow body rests at least occasionally on the cliche, with a device for pressing the end face of the hollow body against the cliche, with a device for producing a relative motion between the cliche and the hollow body, whereby the hollow body is guided such that it can swivel about an axis extending basically parallel to the relative motion, and with a pad which can be pressed onto the inked cliche and which accepts the ink from the recesses in the cliche and transfers it onto an object to be printed.
In a known machine of this kind (DE-C No. 22 05 430) in which the hollow body forms a pot which is open on one side only, this pot is seated on the cliche. The pot is moved over the cliche in a reciprocating motion by means of a driving device. During the outward motion the cliche is inked whereby the ink inks both the recesses of the cliche which is engraved in the manner of a gravure plate as well as the remaining flat surface of the cliche, and on the return motion the hollow body leaves the area of the cliche, and a wiping blade or doctor blade disposed behind the hollow body and displaceable with the latter skims off excess ink from the surface of the cliche so that the ink is left only in the recesses of the cliche from where it is accepted by the pad. After accepting the ink from the cliche, the pad is pivoted on an arm and then prints an object. Although, in this machine, the lip of the pot has a certain wiping effect, it is not capable of wiping the cliche completely clean without an additional wiping blade. The lip of the pot in the known machine consists of a relatively soft material, namely a plastic.
The device for pressing the end face of the hollow body against the cliche exhibits a lever which is mounted about an upper horizontal swivel shaft in a machine frame and which is pressed downward by a spring, whereby mounted on its lower end by means of a horizontal swivel shaft extending parallel to the first-mentioned shaft is a ring which is slipped over the hollow body and presses on a projecting collar of the hollow body. The number of printing operations which can be executed by the known machine each hour is limited by the fact that the distances the moving parts have to cover cannot be passed through in as short a time as desired because otherwise excessive acceleration of these parts would occur. Furthermore, if the rate of motion is raised too greatly, there is the possibility that the wiping blade will lift off the surface of the cliche because the ink on the surface of the cliche which is more or less liquid or pasty might cause the wiping blade to float up with the result that the cliche can no longer be cleanly wiped off.